If my significant other is any indication, the answer to that is an emphatic yes. Previously she couldn't stand McCain and said as she put it, "I figured he'd pick some other boring old politician." She also reports that the internet mom boards are buzzing with excitement over Sarah Palin.

And yes, it's a brilliant move not just for this but for other reasons. Significantly, Palin is the one who killed Alaska's "bridge to nowhere" and has been significant in rooting out corruption in the old Republican power structures in that state. She's pro-energy and pro-drilling (as you would expect).

Her husband is an Native American and an Eskimo. Her son is being deployed to Iraq in September (Joining McCain's son). The whole family is outdoorsy sports, hunter and fisher types. She just described herself as a "hockey mom".

She is also pro-life, pro creationism, pro-God. NRA member for life.

In short, she unites the Republican coalition again, and adds in blue collar types and average working moms. It's a four or five-fer! (depends on how you count). Again, just simply brilliant. Almost every type of Republican, from economic to social conservatives to the NRA crowd is simply ecstatic over this pick. McCain just signalled that the future of the GOP is solidly conservative. I don't know about the Moms but he just won his base back.

Dailykos and other are grousing about her being just an identity politics pick and another Dan Quayle. They are also saying the experience attack is dead. But then they go and use it against her anyway. Heh. But the Dan Quayle template doesn't fit at all. Dan Quayle was a child of privilege and became a lawyer, using family connections to follow the normal political route. Sarah Palin is not a child of privilege and is not following anyone's standard template.

Two hours until showtime, and recent developments since DK's last post, which was chock full of recent developments itself:

-The Politico is now reporting that Romney won't, repeat won't be in Dayton today.

So process of elimination time. it's not Pawlenty, and if that ABC report that Palin is still in Alaska is true, then it's not her either, so who's left.

I think we're missing the obvious here: It's Dayton, OH and it's going to be an Ohio guy. Kasich or Portman is what my gut tells me now. They're both here, and all the rest was apparently serious vetting plus some elaborate head fakery.

On Palin, I think it would be a bold gutsy move, but if McCain's major focus is on experience, Palin will undercut it, even though governor trumps senator in presidential politics. Gotta hand it to Team McCain, they sure are generating some buzz.

Sources are reporting that Sen. John McCain has chosen Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty as his running mate. McCain and Pawlenty will appear together at a rally in Dayton, Ohio, where Pawlenty will be officially introduced as the Republican running mate.

Pawlenty is a second term governor who won reelection in 2006 by a slim margin in a bad year nationally for Republicans. He is also the national co-chair for the McCain campaign, and was an early supporter. He was scheduled to appear at the Minnesota State Fair tomorrow, at the same time that McCain was holding the Ohio rally. But sources say that Pawlenty has canceled all interviews and appearances, and has turned over his scheduling duties to the McCain campaign.

Until the final announcement is made, all reports on the selection are conjecture. But the swift cancellation of all of Pawlenty's appearances does appear to indicate that he will be the pick.

Looks like John McCain plans to let Barack Obama bask in his post-convention speech glow for all of about 13 hours before he reorients the media back on John McCain:

John McCain is planning to rollout his vice-presidential nominee in three battleground states this weekend, with large-scale rallies planned for Ohio, Pennsylvania and Missouri, according to aides and advisers.

The GOP nominee-in-waiting will move to immediately change the campaign conversation from Barack Obama's football stadium acceptance speech Thursday to the new Republican ticket, to be revealed at a noontime Friday rally in a Dayton, Ohio, basketball arena. McCain and his running mate will then travel by bus to Pennsylvania, where they'll hold an outdoor event at a minor league baseball stadium in Washington County, just southwest of Pittsburgh. On Sunday, the duo will head to suburban St. Louis for another event to be held at a minor league baseball stadium, this one in O'Fallon, Mo.

...

Speculation is increasingly centered on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, although Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman remains an option and remains in the final mix.

Romney and Huckabee, even as top front runners both bring the risk of polarizing the GOP into economic and religious conservatives. McCain is polarizing enough as is, so I question whether Romney is really in the mix. Personally, I hope not. Tim Pawlenty would be strong, but would need serious introductions to the national scene. Joe Lieberman, as I've said before would be an interesting pick and certainly a challenge to sell to the GOP, but I think it could be done. Very interesting that he's still in the mix.

This is early of course, but Gallup is reporting that 14% of voters are more likely to vote for Obama with Biden on board. 7% are less likely (among those are likely Hillary die hards) and the rest are the usual no change. So that's a net gain of 7% according to their numbers.


That isn't the interesting part. The interesting part is the comparison to previous VP picks:

• A net 17% of nationwide registered voters said they were more likely to vote for John Kerry in 2004 on the basis of his selection of John Edwards as his running mate (24% more likely and 7% less likely).
• A net 12% of voters reported being more likely to vote for Al Gore in 2000 on account of his choosing Joe Lieberman (16% more likely and 4% less likely).
• A net 18% of voters indicated they were more likely to vote for Bob Dole in 1996 on the basis of his choice of Jack Kemp to complete the ticket (26% more likely and 8% less likely).
• A net 25% of voters were more likely to vote for Bill Clinton in 1992 on account of Al Gore (33% more likely and 8% less likely).
• The only recent vice presidential choices to spark less voter reaction than Biden were Dick Cheney in 2000 (net 4%, with 14% more likely and 10% less likely) and Dan Quayle in 1988 (net score of 0, with 10% more likely and 10% less likely).

Wow, a better pick than Cheney and Quayle, that's really quite the masterful decision. I maintain my opinion that this is a big, big miss by the Obama campaign.

Sen. Barack Obama's selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden may turn out to be the biggest mistake of his campaign. Bigger than the European trip, and more lasting than the position switches. Joe Biden is a very competent Senator. He has, after all, won six terms from the voters of his state. But that very fact, along with some of his recently held positions, statements, and one other crucially important factor could cause Obama to regret his choice come November.

It is hard to imagine a selection that undercuts Obama's narrative more then Joe Biden. Biden has been a Senator for 35 years. That is a long time even by Senatorial standards. Obama has been campaigning as the fresh new face, a Washington outsider with the right tools to change the way politics is done in the nation's capital. Biden is a seasoned political pro, knowledgable and skilled in the art of Washington political combat. By choosing Biden, Obama is signaling that politics as usual will be the order of the day in an Obama administration. Furthermore, Obama has built his appeal around his superior judgment, based mostly on his opposition to the Iraq was from the beginning. Biden supported the Iraq war resolution initially, although he has since said that his yes vote on the resolution was a mistake.

Another staple of the Obama campaign has been its claim that experience is overrated. The biggest criticism of Sen. Obama is that he is a relative political neophyte, with little foreign policy or military experience. Obama counters that his judgment is enough to overcome those shortcomings. Biden brings tremendous foreign policy and military experience to the ticket. He is the current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and has been a long time member of the Armed Services Committee. His selection indicates that Obama realizes that experience is indeed necessary, and judgment alone is not a worthy substitute. Biden himself declared Obama to be "not ready" for the presidency when he was a candidate for the Democratic nomination. That statement has already been turned into a McCain television commercial.

UPDATE: It's official. The word came first via Obama's web site and shortly thereafter a text message went out to supporters stating, "Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee."

ABC News' Jake Tapper is reporting that the Secret service is en route to Sen. Joe Biden's Delaware home, indicating that Sen. Barack Obama has chosen Biden to be his running mate.

The United States Secret Service has dispatched a protective detail to assume the immediate protection of Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., a source tells ABC News, indicating in all likelihood that Biden has been officially notified that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, has selected him to be his running mate.

Sources also tell ABC News that two others said to be finalists for the position of Obama's running mate -- Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Virginia Gov Tim Kaine -- have been told they have not been selected for the vice presidential slot.

Kaine flew to Denver earlier today, is in Denver tonight and has no plans to leave in the next 24 hours. Bayh is at his Washington, DC, home with his family.

Biden was last seen minutes ago at his Wilmington estate where his extended brood is gathering.

Until the official announcement is made, around 10 AM tomorrow morning by text message, all reports on the selection are conjecture. However, unless the Secret Service is participating in an Obama campaign head fake, this report seems as solid an indication of Obama's selection as there can be.

David Knowles broached the subject earlier, and today's news that Lieberman is on the convention slate as the Zell Miller of 2008 and that McCain is asking the base about a pro-choice ticket heats up the speculation; could McCain be about to pick Joe Lieberman as VP?


I can see it happening, they have a good working relationship, Joe is his own man in the senate and so, famously, is John McCain. The lefties would view him as a traitor, but heck that ship has sailed already hasn't it. The interesting consideration is what effect it would have on the GOP Base. Would they stick together and allow John McCain to run on what could be a unity moderate ticket? The political analysts in McCain's employ are I'm sure salivating over the opportunity to grab the center and crowd Obama over to the margins.


Again, the big question whether the base would allow this or lash out in fury. Speaking for myself, I'm OK with Joe Lieberman, I don't need a VP pick to tell me whether McCain will be a conservative champion, eight years of his past history of working against conservatives already tells me everything I need to know. So it's not as if I would see this as a stab in the back, no it's the usual-for-McCain stab in the front. And as far as picking a Democrat/centrist, McCain could do far worse.

Sen. John McCain's campaign said yesterday that Sen. McCain will announce his running mate selection on Friday, August 29th, the morning after Sen. Barack Obama gives his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention in Denver. The date was chosen specifically to try and deaden the impact of Obama's speech. McCain is counting on his selection commanding the news cycle for the weekend leading into the start of the Republican National Convention on Sept. 1st, in Minneapolis.

The Politico reports that McCain campaign sources are planning for a rally of over 10,000 people in Dayton, Ohio, where the announcement is expected to be made. The location is leading to some speculation about who the pick will be. Former Congressman Rob Portman is an Ohio native and is considered by many to be a front-runner for the selection. Another Ohio native, former Congressman John Kasich, is considered a dark horse for the nomination. But sources in the McCain campaign confess to having no idea who McCain will ultimately select.

The strategy of making the selection public immediately after Obama's nomination is designed to give the pick them maximum possible impact. Republicans, as the party in power in the White House, have the advantage of having their convention come last. That gives them an opportunity to try and trump the spectacle that Democrats will put on the preceding week. With only three days between the end of the Democratic convention and the start of the Republican gathering, the McCain campaign can step on Obama's post-convention bounce while building up a head of steam for the following week.

The McCain campaign's trial balloon from earlier this week has been completely deflated judging from Sen. McCain's performance at last night's Civil Forum on the Presidency, hosted by Pastor Rick Warren. In answer to a question about abortion and abortion policy, McCain closed the door on the possibility of selecting a pro-abortion rights running mate. Earlier, McCain had floated the name of former Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge as a potential vice-presidential candidate, saying that the campaign did not believe that Ridge's pro-choice views should "rule him out" of consideration for the number two slot.

Last night, however, McCain told Warren that he believed that a human being was deserving of protection, "from the moment of conception," and he went on to leave no doubt on where a McCain Administration would stand on the question of abortion in America.

"I will be a pro-life president and my administration will have pro-life policies."

That comment seems to now rule out Ridge and another oft mentioned possible running mate for McCain, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman (I).

McCain's choice of running mate will be closely watched by conservatives for signs that McCain is reaching out to them. His campaign has made strides in bringing suspicious conservatives on board, and McCain now garners a higher percentage of Republicans who say they will vote for him that Sen. Barack Obama gets of Democrats. But the suggestion that McCain could potentially select a pro-choice running mate brought out all of the old fears among pro-life Republicans critical to McCain's chances in November. Based on last night's answer on abortion policy, the McCain campaign has received the message on abortion from the base loud and clear.